This Week in Gaming

Something of a cool down period after last week brought us two mega titles, this week nonetheless does include the return of Mario, who I think I may have heard of.

Remember way back in June when we brought you news of Versus Evil showcasing a collection of indie games? Of course you don’t. But I do. And one of those games was Armikrog, a point-and-click adventure from the makers of the cult classic Earthworm Jim. In a week of varied and diverse looking games, Armikrog somehow manages to be the most interesting in terms of visuals, utilizing a rarely seen approach of clay animation. The general plot focuses on a space explorer who crash lands on a weird planet and ends up locked up in a strange fortress called Armikrog. The game is getting its PC release on 8th September.

First glimpsed way back in 2013, Lovers in a Dangerous Spacetime finally gets its release on the 9th September. The center of much hype when it was first revealed, the indie game’s release is somewhat highly anticipated. With it’s neon aesthetic and innovative co-op gameplay, Lovers in a Dangerous Spacetime sees teams of two working together to fly their spaceship through a series of constellation-inspired levels. Cooperation is the name of the game here, as each ship is controlled via a series of panels, one for each of the four primary guns, along with the map screen, engine, shields and the ship’s special weapon. With seven stations needing to be manned by only two pilots you’ll spend most of your time panicking and running from one station to the next, so you need to be in constant communication with your buddy. Doing something unique with the co-op format, Lovers in a Dangerous Spacetime is exactly the kind of game to tear apart long established and newly blossoming friendships alike. But judging from the hype, it may just be worth the ensuing loneliness.

We’ve gone an impressive amount of time doing these without coming across everybody’s favourite Italian Plumber (well maybe not everyone’s. Someone has to have a little love for Luigi) but this week he finally makes an overdue appearance. Super Mario Maker is the latest side-scrolling platformer for the prolific character. We all know that a new Mario game needs a throwaway gimmick, one that will spawn a whole new sub-franchise (because what else do Nintendo have). This time said gimmick revolves around level creation/editing. So kind of like Little Big Planet. Well exactly like Little Big Planet. But with Mario. The game is coming to the Wii U on the 11th.

Speaking of Little Big Planet, from the creators of Sony’s flagship platforming series comes a new game, Tearaway Unfolded. Unfolded is an expansion of the original Tearaway, which was released on the handheld PSVita in 2013. The basic selling-point of the first game was how the gamer interacted with the world via 4th wall breaking mechanics. This has carried over to the PS4 version, which has you control the wind by swiping the touchpad, suck enemies into your controller and throw them aside, and light the way for your character with the controller’s light bar. It’s also incredibly cute. So well worth a look. The game is released on PS4 on the 11th.

Etrian Mystery Dungeon is the final release of the week. The game is a crossover between the Etrian Odyssey series, and the Mystery Dungeon series. I don’t know either. What I do know though is that the game combines the features of both franchises to create the JRPG equivalent of Alien Vs Predator. So expect lots of Dungeon crawling, party combat systems and awkward English dubbing. The game is released on the Nintendo 3DS on September 11th September.